I had a guy who was routinely abusive to people, thinking he was better than us so he didn't have to be at all polite and put one of the call entry girls in tears. So I had her transfer him to me.

I started typing everything he was saying as he was saying it and he went on for a minute or so before he caught on I was doing it. (I could type 120 wpm at the time, on an IBM Model M clicky keyboard... it'd once been described as 'two skeletons wearing tap shoes having a gunfight during a hailstorm on a tin roof over a rattlesnake farm').

I hadn't said a word other than 'can I have your case number'... He started yelling about how I couldn't do that and he'd have me fired and more abuse, and I took every bit of it down verbatim, with no censoring.

Once he'd finally figured out that I wasn't intimidated, he ran down.

TechTyger: "You done? Now, what's your actual problem?"

He finally told me, and it was something stupid that I could have fixed ten minutes ago if he'd just shut the fuck up and told me.

I fixed it, and did the ending spiel, he hung up, and I sent email to my supervisor and my manager with the ticket number and the explanation. At the time, calls were only recorded randomly, due to the lack of sophistication and copper phone lines (Noe, anywhere you call that says 'call may be recorded', the call IS being recorded) but fortunately that was one of them.

So, it went up to my manager's manager, to HIS boss, to the director for the entire account, over to their management, then rolled downhill and landed on this guy.

The next time he called in he was very, very polite. I found out unofficially later that he was required to call his supervisor for permission before he called the helpdesk and had been told (After other complaints, not just mine; the others were brushed off as 'the customer is...', well, you know. I won't write something that offensive here) that if the got one more complaint that he would be out on his ass so fast his pants would catch on fire from the friction.

I knew he knew it was me, when he called, from my voice and my keyboard, so he was extra super polite. It was lovely. :D

I work in an office for a major bank, which doesn't have an on-site IT technician. As I know more than most people there about computers, it falls to me to fill the role of IT coordinator.

My immediate boss, no matter how many times I explain it to him, insists on calling the CPU tower of a PC "the hard drive."

Although it caused some confusion to begin with, I generally know what he means and ignore it, and the job gets done. But this came to a head a while ago when we had some extra work coming in, and we needed 20 new PCs, which my boss dutifully ordered.

When the shipment came in, it was in a suspiciously small box. Of course my boss had put in a call asking for "20 new hard drives," and of course that's what we'd been sent.

The funniest part was listening to one side of a telephone conversation in which he angrily complained that he'd wanted "HARD DRIVES, not this box of useless junk!"

Dispatched out to a customer's desk for a monitor swap. Our company gives a budget every year to employees to order new computer hardware. This particular individual decided to use his spending on an extra wide, 4k monitor. The monitor was already delivered to his desk, and I just had to go out to unplug his old one, plug in his new one, and make sure it works.

Just finished unplugging his old monitor, plugged in his new one, and powering it on.

User: Why are the icons so big?

Tech: We'll have to set the resolution to its native size. Then they'll be the correct size. Change to native resolution, some astronomically high numbers

User: Well now everything's too big, can you zoom it in more?

Tech: Yeah, sure. Change magnification to 125%

User: Still to small, can you make it bigger?

Tech: Yeah, no problem. Change to 150%

User: Well, that's too big, can you make it 132%?

Tech: Thinking that's an oddly specific number. Unfortunately, no we can set it to 125% or 150%, let's take a look at them and find out which works better for you.

User: Oh, OK.

Tech: change between 125% and 150% a few times, asking user which looks better, and he can't decide

User: Bull-shit. You don't look anything like a John. You've gotta have a ching-chong name. What's your last name?

Tech: Kawashima

User: So what, is that Japanese?

Tech: Yes.

User: Are you married?

Tech: Yes.

User: Is she Japanese too?

Tech: Yes.

User: Hey, this monitor looks smaller than it did before.

Tech: You mean, the resolution of the screen?

User: No, I mean physically smaller. Did you do something to it? Does your wife have a ching-chong name?

Tech: No, it's the same monitor.

User: I know that, but it looks smaller. You must've changed something.

Tech: It's physically the same monitor, nothing's changed.

User: Let me find something to measure it with. What's your wife's name?*Has nothing to measure it with, but is convinced I somehow physically shrank his monitor.*And the color doesn't look good. Why is it so bright? Can we change that?

Tech: Adjust brightness. I'd rather not talk about my wife.

User: It's too yellow. I bet she has a ching-chong name.

Tech: Found that this monitor is set to default on "Warm," toggled through settings and user can't decide if he likes "Cool" or "User" better.

User: I don't know, what do you think? I think Cool looks better.

Tech: Yeah, sure. Change to cool

User: Second thought, I don't like that, can we change it back to user.

Tech: Change it and show it to the user so he can change it on his own

User: I don't like that. You expect me to do your job for you? Changing these settings are your job. Look, "John," I like you, but you need to get a better attitude about your work. I'll make sure to leave you a good survey score, but I'm going to comment about your attitude.

Tech: Was there anything else you need at this time?

User: Actually, I don't want this monitor here anymore. Can you swap this monitor with that one? (dual monitor set up).

Tech: Unplug everything, move it, plug it all back in

User: Second thought, now that I see it, I want it back where it was earlier.

Tech: You're sure?

User: Yes, swap them back.

Tech: Swaps them back

User: Rocking the monitor back and forward.I don't know, John. This monitor still looks smaller than before.

Tech: It's the same monitor.

User: i know that! You changed something.

Tech: Nothing was changed except the resolution settings which we went over together.

User: No, no. Something else changed. It's smaller than before.

Tech: It's the exact same size.

User: I'm going to find something to measure it with later. Anyway, you're free to go.